Bill Bailey's Train Delay Playlist

ALBUM: Sk shlomo: Surrender

“He is an extraordinary beatboxer, and he took this to another level. He’d construct whole layers of brass and make the entire arrangements of a piece of music just through using his voice. This is his first full-length album. It’s a revelation and it delves into quite serious subjects.”

FILM: Bad Boy Bubby

“It’s by an Australian director called Rolf de Heer, who was originally Dutch. It’s become a bit of a cult. The subject matter really appealed to me. A man is kept prisoner in a hovel for years by his oppressive mother. She raises him to the point of being a man in his thirties and he’s never been out of this room. The first 20 minutes are almost unwatchably harrowing yet fascinating.

“It’s intensely claustrophobic. Then he gets out. There’s nothing quite like it, really. You’re rooting for him the whole time. And he does find another life – he finds some kind of redemption.”

TV SHOW: This Country

“It’s a great set-up: they’re cousins and they’re speaking to the camera as if it were a documentary. It’s a warm-hearted thing, very funny, well-observed, well-acted and painfully close to the truth. I grew up in the West Country – in a place called Keynsham. The accent’s very familiar.”

BOOK: Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard

“It starts with young Jim living a privileged, colonial, expat life, and then the whole thing is shattered by the war and the Japanese takeover. It’s harrowing, but there’s fantastic detail of what life was like at the time. Ballard called Shanghai ‘a 50-year party’. It’s a fascinating place.”